Will Prime Day be already in June this year?

The biggest news, however, concerns everyone: So far it is only a guess, but there are many indicators that Prime Day will already take place in June this year. Especially after the last edition happened only in October 2020, it would be very early this year – but Amazon is always full of surprises.

General Updates

Prime Day 2021 already in June?

Some experts expect that Prime Day will be pre-poned to June this year. Normally, the event takes place in July, but in 2020 it was moved to October due to the Corona pandemic. The early date could be a strategic decision: In June, the big sales event would certainly provide a boost to Amazon’s Q2 sales. Amazon did not comment on the speculation so far. However, we have discovered a hint in Vendor and Seller Central that speaks for Prime Day in June. Respective Prime Day deals must be posted there by the end of May.

Higher shipping costs for FBA sellers

Amazon has announced it will raise shipping costs for FBA sellers starting June 8, 2021. On average, prices for German merchants will increase by 8.3% for domestic shipping and by 12.8% for international shipping. Amazon had announced the increase earlier this year, but postponed it due to the Corona crisis. At the same time, German FBA sellers will benefit from a reduction in storage fines per unit sold from €0.50 to €0.35.

Access to customer data is getting more difficult for FBA sellers

Since last week, FBA sellers have not been able to access their customers’ names and addresses like they usually could. Amazon removed the data from its central report on April 8. A reason for this could be that Amazon wants to prevent the sellers’ use of the data for their own online shops. However, the customer data is not completely gone. Our tip: check the tax reports.

No more use of HTML in the UK

Amazon has announced that it will no longer allow HTML format on product detail pages on its UK marketplace as of June 8, 2021. Amazon cites better display on devices that are not HTML capable and more security for customers as reasons for this. Existing formatting must be adapted by early June, otherwise it will be automatically removed from the platform.

Amazon’s share of US online ads market grows to over 10%

In 2020, Amazon’s share of the US online advertising market was 10.3% – up from 7.8% the previous year. Nearly 90% of Amazon’s ad revenue in 2020 was generated by ads on the platform itself. Further growth of Amazon’s ad business is expected: eMarketer predicts a 10.7% share of the US online advertising market this year and 12.8% in 2023.

E-commerce sales in DACH exceed €100 billion

In 2020, e-commerce sales in Germany, Austria and Switzerland combined exceeded €100 billion for the first time. This makes the German-speaking e-commerce market the region with the highest sales in Europe. The strongest growth in revenue, at +27.2% year-on-year, was in Switzerland, while growth in Germany was +14.6%. If one compares the sectors, sales in the food retail sector increased the most.

Ebay introduces videos on product pages

Ebay has begun introducing videos on product pages on its U.S. marketplace. The videos are integrated into the image gallery to provide good visibility. Initially, they will only be available through the Ebay app before the video display is rolled out to the desktop view as well. A date for the launch of product videos on other marketplaces has not yet been set.

Billion-dollar fine for Alibaba: violation of competition law

Chinese marketplace Alibaba must pay $2.8 billion in fines: According to China’s market regulator, Alibaba violated competition law by prohibiting merchants on its platform from selling their goods on competing marketplaces or penalizing them for doing so. This supposedly prevented fair competition. Alibaba stated that it intends to develop alternative programs in the future in order to bind merchants to its platform.

What caught our attention

With Sponsored Display Audiences, it is now also possible to select target groups in Sponsored Advertising (as previously only via Amazon DSP). For this purpose, Amazon provides prebuilt target group segments according to lifestyle and interests, for example. The audiences can primarily help to reach potential new customers through awareness campaigns.

Sponsored Brand Video Ads are delivered less or not at all if the keywords of the campaign are not found in the title of the ASIN. Video Ads are therefore not really suitable for use in campaigns with competitor and cross-category targeting – at least not yet. Amazon has confirmed that the further development of Video Ads is on its roadmap.

For more and more categories, the designations of the variants are now displayed directly on the search results page. So far, however, this does not seem to apply consistently and only to the variant design “SizeName”. If the feature catches on, the size of the packaging unit in the title could make room for important keywords in the future and be placed at the end.

In the Brand Store, Amazon displays a short summary for some products. Clicking the button opens a pop-up window with the product photos, bullet points and variants. This feature seems to be still in its testing phase, as we could not discover it on all marketplaces and also not for all products so far.

In the product modules across the entire width of the Brand Store page, the different variations of a product are now directly visible and clickable in the preview. This means that a well-informed purchase decision can be made directly in the store without having to leave the store and switching to the product detail page.

Remdash: Seller Analysis

With Remdash, you can not only track your basic Buy Box metrics like price, availability, and the owner of a Buy Box at any time – but additionally, our tool offers an in-depth sellers analysis with information such as:

• Who else is selling my product on Amazon?
• For what price is my product being sold by others?
• Which sellers are selling my products with the most significant deviation?
  
  Interested in Remdash? Schedule your personal product demo here!

Top 5 Amazon Keywords